It’s true that most applications were stream oriented, and Minitel was, as the users’ sessions were only bytes (in videotex encoding) rendered by the Minitel as a serial terminal integrating a modem (1200 bauds reception, 75 bauds emission!).
There was a smart gateway node that translated complex x25 from the Minitel service providers nodes into simple bidirectional stream of bytes to the Minitels, it was a specialized type of packet asssembler disassembled (PAD) called a PAD Videotex (PAVI).
Now x25 did have packets, Minitel terminals did not. So the PAVI and x25 servers were working very differently and with more complexity (hence smart) than Minitel serial terminals (hence dumb).
Haha. I've been "working" on an X.25 implementation on a PC and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what the hell a PAD was ever needed for.
My understanding 30 years ago was a "PAD" was the TCP/IP equivalent of a "terminal server", translating serial streams to network connections. This may be an overly simplistic view, I don't know. It's been a very long time!
Are there any public x.25 networks still operating?
> Are there any public x.25 networks still operating?
Not that I know of. My plan if to use old line simulators and other tools i can find on ebay and telcom equipment reseller sites to create a "fake" private one. This is one of those projects that I'm working on purely out of novelty interest :P.
There was a smart gateway node that translated complex x25 from the Minitel service providers nodes into simple bidirectional stream of bytes to the Minitels, it was a specialized type of packet asssembler disassembled (PAD) called a PAD Videotex (PAVI).
Now x25 did have packets, Minitel terminals did not. So the PAVI and x25 servers were working very differently and with more complexity (hence smart) than Minitel serial terminals (hence dumb).
It’s not that x25 mandated dumb terminals.